Holy Trinity

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

For over 75 years people around the world have come to know and love the comic book characters Batman and Superman. One represents vigilante justice in a dark and crooked world and the other stands for the American way of peace. Over many years these DC Comics legends have crossed paths in the books and on the small screen in an animated fashion, though never on the big screen. Now as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe gears up to start Phase Three of their movie universe, DC has galloped to the party of cinematic universes quite late. Jumping off with 2013’s Man of Steel, DC has taken the plunge and thrown their greatest heroes together in hopes of battling Marvel in your local Cineplex with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Now I am pretty sure that I can sit here and rehash every synopsis that has ever been written for this movie, but unless you have been living without any type of communication with the outside world I am pretty confident that you all know what this film is about. However for those of you that might not, let me provide you with a quickie. Eighteen months has passed since the event of Man of Steel and Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck Gone Girl) is still pretty bitter that his city of Gotham was terribly affected by the chaos brought forth by the epic battle between Superman/Clark Kent (Henry Cavill The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and General Zod (Michael Shannon 99 Homes).  So Wayne sets his sights on taking down the alien so that nothing like that could happen again. What Wayne doesn’t know is Kent is having reservations about being the Man of Steel himself while the world around him is split on their opinions of him.

This is a very large (running time excluded) film with an even more grand plot. With that being said, it is quite a straight forward movie with one simple purpose…does the world really need or want Superman. The perplexing aspect of this film is that it is supposed to be a direct sequel to Man of Steel, yet I felt the film focused more on Batman than anything else. As I am more of a Batman fan than a Superman fan this didn’t bother me at all, just a little confusing that’s all. So for the next few paragraphs, without spoilers, I will give you what was good and what was bad about this film, then my final thoughts.

The Good: Plain and simple, the characters and the actors who played them. From the first mention that Affleck was going to be Batman, I was excited. I may have been the only person on the planet, but I was still excited. I actually liked his take on Daredevil, I just didn’t like the movie. I knew that if Affleck was given the right comic book character again he would do a great job. Affleck’s Batman is as close to the comic version as we may ever see on the big screen. He is an older and more cynical Batman that is toward the end of his rope and fed up with going through the same motions all the time. Affleck brings the same darkness (maybe a little more) that Christian Bale’s version did, but that same darkness has started to seep into his Bruce Wayne persona. Sticking with the Batman side of things, I LOVED Jeremy Irons’ (Beautiful Creatures) Alfred Pennyworth. Irons is the everyman (mechanic, tech guy, and conscience) that we see in the comics and games. Along with his sarcastic humor, this Alfred I hope sticks around for the new Batman films.

Now crossing over to the Superman camp, I still like Cavill as Superman. In Man of Steel he did a great job of trying to find where he fit in our world and here he is trying to cope with the decisions that he has made from that film and in this one. A lot of other critics say that he is too brooding and bummed out, but I think it is a unique twist on both characters. We are so used to seeing Batman being bummed and Superman being a shiny light. With this film, Batman is an aging veteran who knows his place and has accepted it, where Superman is new and terrifying a little bit and he is trying to prove to the world that he isn’t as bad as some may perceive him.

Now besides the emotions of wanting more of Affleck’s Batman that filled me up at the end of the film, I was also left yearning for Gal Gadot (Furious 7) and her Wonder Woman. Now I will spoil that she is very underutilized in this film, but I imagine for good reason. Every time she is on screen Gadot brings a slight mystery to Diana (though her name isn’t actually said until late in the film) and when she shows up at the climax, she is everything that any Wonder Woman fan could ever hope for. I am even more excited now for her solo film, especially if she is anything like she is in this film.

The Bad: Sorry, we all knew this section was coming. As I mentioned a little bit ago, this is a huge film with so much that is going on with so little to show for it. The best way I could try to explain what I mean is by having you picture all of the Marvel Phase One films…mash them together with little cameos here and there in one movie…then asking you to go see it’s sequel, The Avengers. Dawn of Justice is like that in a sense, which DC and director Zack Snyder (Man of Steel) try to cram a lot of information about a few characters into one film when this film could have been at least a couple different films. After viewing this film, I think that this could have been Justice League: Part I. The even more sad part about this film is that we won’t get to be introduced to any of the other members of the Justice League until the movie. Wonder Woman’s solo is next June and the other solo films come after the Justice League film.

I also wasn’t a huge fan of Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and his version of Lex Luthor. This Luthor was treated as a spoiled kid who just wanted to destroy everything that stood for good. Eisenberg and the writers also decided to make this Luthor a little psychotic and that just wasn’t congruent with the comic version at all. Luthor should have been treated like Vincent D'Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk of Netflix’s Daredevil, a schemer and manipulator.

Going along with villains of the film, I thought that Doomsday was a slight let down. As cool as it was to see him on screen, Doomsday is a JL villain all on his own and here he is squashed a little too easily. Snyder could have teased Doomsday and stuck with Luthor being the main protagonist or maybe even used some other lesser villain for the ‘Holy Trinity’ (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) to take down leading them into bigger villains.

The Verdict (a little longer one at that): As amazing as the action sequences and Affleck’s Batman is to see on screen, the film was just okay. It’s not that I hated the film but I do have two solid opinions about this film. First, Snyder needs to direct a Batman film as that part of this movie was almost (I say almost) as perfect to the Batman character as Christopher Nolan’s take on the character. Second would have to be that this was a very underwhelming start to the DC Cinematic Universe, but it definitely had promise in small doses. Those being the introduction of the cinematic version of Wonder Woman and the cameos of Aquaman (Jason Mamoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller Trainwreck), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher).

So in closing I would say that this film is worth your time in the comfort of your own home so you have pause those quick Easter Egg moments and watch Ben Affleck kick ass as Batman as much as you want on your own couch. Also for the fanboy in all of us, just wait for the Ultimate release of this film because I am sure that there will be more Easter Egg’y goodness on the Blu-Ray.